Advice Request Concern or discovery - what is the reason for changing the security setup?

[Andy Ful]

Buy a Mac and use defaults in default Browser
Best security and privacy by default and you're not unique in fingerprinting

Does Safari do more on Mac than on Windows?

OK. I updated my info about Safari (discontinued for Windows).

Overview of Safari for Windows: history, pros and cons

Find out interesting information about the history of Safari for Windows as well as Safari for Mac, advantages and disadvantages of this browser and what to do if you need to see what the site looks like in Safari on Windows.

comparium.app

 

[Andy Ful]

Better privacy of Safari can be questionable:

"Intentionally limiting ad blockers and tracking protection[edit]

Beginning in 2018, Apple made technical changes to Safari's content blocking functionality which prompted backlash from users[103] and developers[104] of ad blocking extensions, who said the changes made it impossible to offer a similar level of user protection found in other browsers. Internally, the update limited the number of blocking rules[105] which could be applied by third-party extensions, preventing the full implementation of community-developed blocklists. In response, several developers of popular ad and tracking blockers announced their products were being discontinued[106], as they were now incompatible with Safari's newly-limited content blocking features. As a matter of policy, Apple requires the use of WebKit,[107] Safari's underlying rendering engine, in all browsers developed for its iOS platform, preventing users from installing any competing product which offers full ad blocking functionality. Beginning with Safari 13, popular extensions such as UBlock Origin will no longer work."

Safari (web browser) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Edit.
But for some people there can be other good reasons to choose Apple Mac.

 

[Jan Willy]

Can you provide a link to that extension?

Sorry for my delayed reply. It's beautiful weather, so I'm not all day online.
And now a second sorry. The official name of the extension is Classic Cache Killer. You can find it on Classic Cache Killer
Cache cleaning (related to etag tracking) was discussed on Browser Add-on - Cookie-Autodelete Now Cleans Up Various Data Types like Service Workers Now:
After installing new software or extensions I always look at NextDNS-logs. I've never seen suspicious behaviour from Classic Cache Killer.

 

[ErzCrz]

I suppose the question here is does Microsoft Defender scan cookies and catch in realtime? I'm presuming any files added to disk would be scanned but I don't know whether that's a thing or not. Even so, if somehow the malware was executed at any point, it'd be detected and blocked by MD/WD "on-access".

I like the idea of clearing cache on exit but it'd be good to have exceptions so I don't have to keep manually logging into MalwareTips

 

[Cortex]

Buy a Mac and use defaults in default Browser
Best security and privacy by default and you're not unique in fingerprinting

Some members of my family are Mac fans, my son in law has just bough a small one for £1000, My eldest son likes to use Macs at his company - They are very nice but very expensive, I'm extremely pleased with the PC I built in May & actually been pretty happy with Windows all the time I've used it (3.1) Used Linux but more than happy with 10, will continue to tweak but the setup I have now is the best I've had - Never had any malware to speak of so why change if it's not broken?

 

[Thales]

Boredom, performance issue, fine tuning.

 

[Ink]

Buy a Mac and use defaults in default Browser
Best security and privacy by default and you're not unique in fingerprinting

That's not really a solution.

Their computer is a recent build with modern hardware.

Using macOS and it's ecosystem is very different to using Windows and Android combination.

By default, Safari does not show the full URL, nor does it show URLs when hovering over a links. Safari has a limited range of supported extensions.

There is also a commitment that the user has to pay, and most don't want to spend over a threshold for an Apple device, they'd rather spend that $500 on a graphics card.

• Mac mini starts at $799 USD
• MacBook Air @ $999
• iMac 21 @ $1099 and 27 @ $1799
• MacBook Pro 13 @ $1299 and 16 @ $2399

 

[Andy Ful]

Did anybody leave Mac for a Windows computer?

 

[ForgottenSeer 85179]

Better privacy of Safari can be questionable:

"Intentionally limiting ad blockers and tracking protection[edit]

Beginning in 2018, Apple made technical changes to Safari's content blocking functionality which prompted backlash from users[103] and developers[104] of ad blocking extensions, who said the changes made it impossible to offer a similar level of user protection found in other browsers. Internally, the update limited the number of blocking rules[105] which could be applied by third-party extensions, preventing the full implementation of community-developed blocklists. In response, several developers of popular ad and tracking blockers announced their products were being discontinued[106], as they were now incompatible with Safari's newly-limited content blocking features. As a matter of policy, Apple requires the use of WebKit,[107] Safari's underlying rendering engine, in all browsers developed for its iOS platform, preventing users from installing any competing product which offers full ad blocking functionality. Beginning with Safari 13, popular extensions such as UBlock Origin will no longer work."

Safari (web browser) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Edit.
But for some people there can be other good reasons to choose Apple Mac.

That's good and no limiation.
It increase the performance, the breakage is reduced and also e.g. AdGuard is compatible with that system in Safari.

Safari is the best browser against tracking by default. The GrapheneOS Reddit mod test two different iPhones at same time and both are identified as same / not unique.
I wish this would be the case in Android too.
Also Apple does a lot for privacy like E2E encrypted notifications (not possible with any Android), restrictions against Ad company (with upcoming iOS 14), and more.

Browser extensions should be avoided anyway. Keyword: client side, malicious & spying extensions, attack surface, performance.
But this is a different topic

 

[Local Host]

Did anybody leave Mac for a Windows computer?

Would have to be insane, I can get better hardware for half the price.

As for the system itself, I'm more than happy with Windows, people whine about Windows but OSX is locked down by Apple.